Getting there
- Ferry and drive: The ferry and drive over was smooth, but that's easy to say because I fell asleep most of the way. I was pretty wiped from being up late packing... let's just say packing is not one of my strengths.
- Lunch on the way: Once we were nearing the trail head, we were looking for a good lunch place. But after the last big store, we didn't see many businesses. So we decided we'd eat after hiking in.
Parking, permits, rules, etc.
- Parking: Overnight parking options were mostly in the yards of locals for about $5-10 per night. There's only day parking at the trail head.
- Permits: You need a Makah Indian Reservation permit, and a backcountry camping permit for the group. We didn't know about the backcountry permit, which wasn't good since there were quite a few rangers around checking for the paperwork.
- Bear buckets: Another rule we didn't know about was about having bear buckets. The same ranger we saw at the trailhead, kindly waited for us to hike in before asking about our bear buckets. Two of our more nature-friendly group members hiked all the way out to get a "bear" bucket - it was just a normal bucket. Anyhow, it was pretty funny since we hid our bucket in the sand instead of hanging it up on a tree. We felt like squirrels digging for our food in the morning :)
Highlights
- Hike... It was a nice muddy hike to the beach. The trail was easy, but jumping over muddy patches with your pack was a bit of a challenge. I'd recommend hiking poles or a finding nice walking stick on the way. I'd also suggest high-top boots for walking through mud.
- The beach was gorgeous. I was a bit sad to see quite a bit of washed-up trash, so Jason and I tried to do a mini-beach clean-up. But otherwise, it was great to be hanging out on the beach :)
- Water... There's a nice stream close to the beach, so bring your water filters.
- Crowd... There were quite a few people around when we were exploring the arches along the coast during the day. It was probably a bit more crowded than usual since it was a holiday weekend, but we still had space to set up camp away from other people.
- Beach fun... we occupied our days with tossing the disc, playing hacky sack, making a super big fire, building a beach bench from driftwood, and exploring the coast :)
- Camp fire and cooking... at night, we cooked dumplings (yes, we are an ambitious bunch to make beach dumplings!), bratwurst, and corn. And of course, we had delicious smores.
- Sweet coast... the arches and sea stacks are pretty cool. I also learned that mussels grow on rocks. Hmm, we also looked at lots of sea anemies and star fish.
- After heading out from Shi Shi, we stopped by Cape Flattery for lunch.
